Liars
by DaphneRunning
Summary: The night before Minerva McGonagall begins teaching at Hogwarts, she pays an unexpected visit to Alastor Moody, the brash young Auror. Will eventually span the 1950s to the end of the First War.
1. Chapter 1

"Tartan in a Tangle"

_Autumn, 1957_

She's not thinking about him. That's all right, he's not thinking about her, either.

As her legs wrap around his hips, skirt kilting up around her own, she isn't looking at him. He doesn't worry about that, as he's never been much to look at by even his own estimation. He doesn't need her eyes open when she's dragging her fingernails down his back, or when he's kissing her neck hard enough to leave marks.

She makes a noise that sounds like "Shouldn't," but then he's pressing her against the wall of his apartment, and the word sounds more like "More."

She teaches her first class ever tomorrow, he knows, and takes savage pleasure in marking her just this once with his teeth and his tongue, takes pleasure in the knowledge that she will wear a high collar because of him on her first day, even if she'd rather be with someone else. That's all right. He would rather have been alone tonight, had planned on it until Minerva McGonagall had apparated outside his front door with her wand in hand and desperation in her voice.

She had been rather explicit about what she wanted, which was a relief. He never had the time for girls who played games. Of course, that was probably a reason why he hadn't been with a woman in years. He didn't care much. There were more important things in life besides physical gratification.

Still, he wasn't going to object to a little physical gratification when it quite literally showed up on his doorstep.

She had never liked him much, finding his ways unorthodox and his tempers alarming on the few occasions on which they had met. He had always thought of her as a proper little teacher's pet, hand in the air and nose in a book. If she didn't mind using him to get Albus Dumbledore out of her mind, he wouldn't feel guilty for using her body exactly as she wanted.

She was noisier than he had expected, which didn't displease him in the slightest. He had thought she would be a snooty little prig. "Always the quiet ones," he muttered to himself once she was naked, and motioned with his head that she should drape herself over some flat surface.

The bed evidently did not meet with Minerva's approval as she shot the dingy blankets and unstable bedframe the gimlet eye. "Table or floor," he growled as she looked uncertain. When she still did not move, he decided to take matters into his own hands quite literally. Wrapping his large, strong hands around her waist, he hoisted the younger witch onto a sitting position on the table, whipped out his wand, and shortened the table legs until she was at a respectable height.

He hesitated for only a moment, then, egged on by the look of impatience on her face, slid his cock deep inside the witch. He took pleasure in her gasp, liked the fact that it had been a while, because she was squeezing around him like an iron fist. It would have hurt if it hadn't felt so damn good at the same time, he thought in almost a haze as he set out to give the girl the pounding she had sought him for.

Her nails dug into the skin of his back, and he hoped with a vague and irritated thought that she wouldn't leave marks for too long. They'd ask, at the Auror office. Minerva's thighs were clenched around him, her breath hitching, and he spared hardly a thought for her comfort as he thrust fiercely into another person for the first time in five years.

"Al--" she gasped, then choked back the sound. "Alastor!" she finished in a more controlled voice.

Perversely, this only made Moody want to take her harder, to see in part if she would bruise. "Say his name, go ahead," he urged Minerva, reaching between them to pinch one of her nipples. "I know why you're here."

She only met his eyes for a moment, the squeezed them shut and whispered, "Albus."

That was better. He hated liars. Besides, if he knew Albus, the other wizard would rather have been in Minerva's place than Alastor's, but he kept that knowledge to himself. Minerva probably knew anyways--that was probably why she was here.

The witch's legs wrapped more tightly around him, her hands clutching him close, and Alastor knew he wouldn't last much longer, not with the girl clenched like a vice around him as he filled her again and again. He held on doggedly, not wanting to let her leave without at least giving her what she came for, and sank his teeth instead into her neck, drawing a hoarse cry from her lips.

With a spasm of relief, Alastor heard Minerva scream her climax, felt her tighten even further around him, drawing his own orgasm from him in a burst of light and color that left him boneless and unstable, both hands braced on the table for leverage as he pumped a few last, unsteady times into the woman below him.

"Get off of me," she muttered long before he had regained what he considered conscious thought. "Sleep on your filthy bed, if you must sleep. Some of us have work in the morning."

Moody let himself be pushed to the bed as Minerva gathered her clothing with a quick flick of a wand. "Give all my best to Albus," he muttered unconcernedly, which earned him a quick kick in the side, making him laugh and groan at the same time.

"You're an uncouth barbarian," she informed him sternly, giving him what he supposed must be a teacher's look. "I don't know how they took you to be an Auror when you clearly--"

"Don't get your tartan in a tangle," he growled, good humor evaporating the longer she stood in his room. "And don't come back before a month or so. I need to work up the strength."

That comment would have earned him a slap if he hadn't listened to his reflexes and ducked just in time. "There will be no next time," she said curtly. "Goodbye, Moody."

She stormed out of his apartment on the heels of that statement, though he was sure she would have apparated just to make a point if he hadn't put an anti-apparition spell on the place. After she was gone, he stared around the room and grinned slowly, seeing her brassiere still draped over his chair.

There would be a next time, of that he was certain.


	2. Impertinent Questions

"Impertinent Questions"

_Winter, 1958_

Minerva was furious at herself every time, but that didn't keep her from showing up on the same doorstep, month after month. Alastor, she told herself every time she apparated away from his home, was rude, uncouth, disrespectful, unorthodox, and careless to boot. If what she wanted was just sex, there were much easier ways to go about getting it, she was certain.

But she still returned, again and again, to Alastor Moody's disappointing home, each time angrier at herself. She was angry as she walked out of the Hogwarts grounds to free herself from the anti-Apparition jinxes on the school. She was angry as she stepped through sickening, constricting blackness to arrive right on the man's doorstep every time. She was angry as she rang the doorbell or knocked on the door.

But she was never more angry than when she saw the slow, knowing grin spread across the young Auror's face. At first she had tried putting on her most reproving glare, but he only grinned wider. She thought he liked it when she tried to regain some semblance of control over the proceedings. She knew he liked it when she failed to do so, just as she always failed to keep herself away.

The worst was that he never let her forget the true reason she was there. He would draw her in, roughly strip her (or tell her to strip if he was feeling lazy), run his rough hands over her skin and she would shudder and melt into the touches. Sometimes she would let him kiss her, but usually not.

But before long, before he took her (always on the table, which he had refused to transfigure back to its original height), he would always start talking. "What did he do this time?" he rasped in that voice she didn't like at all, not at all.

"Nothing," she insisted, and the touches grew softer, less insistent, causing her to cry out. "Don't!" she ordered. She hated it when he was soft with her.

"Don't lie," he countered. "I hate liars. Tell me the truth and I'll give you what you want."

She hated this part, she insisted to herself. She ignored the shudder that rippled through her as she gasped out, "Kissed my hand after walking me to my chambers." The memory was seared into her mind. Every time she shut her eyes, she could see the Headmaster bending low over her hand, twinkling eyes meeting hers for the briefest of seconds, as if....

"Got wet, did you?"

That was what she hated the most about Alastor, the way he reduced everything she was feeling to the basest of instincts. "The sensation was a bit higher than that," she tried to reprimand, but the words carried less force when her legs were spread wide for the man in front of her as she leaned back on his table.

"Ah," he said in a hushed voice that carried a hint of a growl as he positioned himself at her entrance, and against her will she felt her pulse quicken. "He made your heart flutter. Nothing base or physical about that at all."

She nodded, then cried out as he penetrated her, as forcefully as he did everything else in life.

"That's why you showed up on my doorstep to spread your pretty legs for me, huh?" He was grinning at her, and she wanted to hit him or curse him--or maybe just relax, because it felt so _good_, and at least she was getting what she needed when all was said and done.

She gritted her teeth to hold back a moan, hissing, "This has nothing to do with you." Her voice broke on the last word, and her hands clutched at the table upon which she was sitting as he rode her hard, taking her just as he always did, driving the very breath from her body with the force of his own on top of her.

"You're welcome to leave any time," he growled in her ear, then bit down hard.

Minerva damned him in her mind for being able to form coherent sentences when he was thrusting into her so perfectly, almost brutally, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough that she knew they would leave marks, and she was just hanging on and hoping that she was damaging his table, as it would serve him right, and-- "Merlin!" she half-choked, half-sobbed as he leaned up just-so, probably on accident, probably to find better purchase, but he rubbed against her so perfectly that she gasped, trembled, and threw her head back. "More," she pleaded, not recognizing her own voice when it was so harsh with passion.

Fortunately, Moody seemed to have run out of awful things to say, and she told herself firmly that she was glad, that she wanted to feel good like this, that she would never return after this last time.

Moody grunted as he buried himself deep within her, his thrusts growing erratic in the way that she knew signaled his climax, and she felt a slight panic arising in her chest. "Don't finish yet," she pleaded, not wanting to leave without giving him that last capitulation of total surrender.

It was too late, though, and his eyes were dark as they met hers as she felt the hot liquid spill from the place their bodies were joined. He looked completely unapologetic, and in that moment, Minerva hated him. She blinked back the angriest tears that had ever sprung to her eyes and pushed him away from her with force. "Cretin!" she spat at him, and "Lowlife! Amateur!"

He still looked supremely unconcerned, and knelt at the edge of the table, his strong hands forcing her legs apart again.

"No," she whispered, as the look in his eyes told her that yes, he was in fact intending to finish her off in a quite different way than usual. "Alastor, don't!"

He didn't listen, as she had known he wouldn't. Her wand was within her reach--she could easily hex him, stun him, send him flying back to hit the wall hard....and then his tongue ran up her slit, ending with an almost-bite to her clit, and she let her hand fall. "Oh," she murmured weakly.

His tongue was diving into her now, mimicking what his cock had just been doing, and she knew he would be tasting himself. The idea made her moan, as did the roughened pad of his thumb that was now digging just a little too hard into the sensitive nub. Everything he did was just a hint too much, just a little over the top, just a toe out of line, and it drove her mad.

Minerva McGonagall loved rules, and order, and numbers, and the softly twinkling eyes of Albus Dumbledore. She loved absolutes and black-and-white and knowing who was wrong. She despised people who uttered the phrase, "Rules are meant to be broken" and tried every day to mean every word that she said.

Because of all these things, Minerva McGonagall hated the idea that she wanted more, while telling him to stop; wanted her gentle Headmaster while submitting herself to the brash young Auror; wanted to be stroked and softly touched while the harsh words and harsher touches of Alastor Moody brought her closer, yes, closer, closer, to, and finally over the edge with a sob of relief.

At least he wasn't smirking, was her first thought once she was capable of thought once again. He was studying her quizzically, as if she were a challenging puzzle. "Why do you come to me, Minerva?" he asked in his gravelly voice.

She turned her head away. It was not a question she wanted to answer. "Hand me my robe," she said instead, retrieving her wand from the counter.

"Tell me. Why me?" When still she didn't answer, he asked persistently, "Is it because Albus is a friend of--"

"It isn't that," she said sharply. "And don't mention him." She wondered briefly if Moody knew why Albus was so uninterested, thought for just a second of asking him, but stifled the urge.

"Then why?"

"Usually," she responded with as much dignity as she could muster, gathering her robe from his outstretched hand, "because you don't ask. If I wanted to answer impertinent questions, I could have stayed at Hogwarts for the night and given extra lessons. Goodbye, Alastor."

She moved to gather up her traveling cloak for the brisk winter passageway, but he caught her wrist in his hand. "You're going to answer me one of these days," he informed her, "Or I'll figure it out myself. I like solving mysteries. It comes with being an Auror."

Minerva didn't deign to respond to this, but pulled her wrist out of his grasp. "It's a pity that manners and chivalry don't also come with being an Auror."

"Haven't turned you away yet, have I?" he asked, the smirk she loathed back on his decidedly unhandsome face.

She donned her cloak with a swish of her wrists. "If that's what passed for chivalry when you were sorted, I fear the hat may have made the wrong choice at last."

"Come now, Minerva!" she heard him call, the good humor back in his voice as she opened the door. "One Gryffindor to another--tell me why you come here!"

The door shut with a snap as Minerva flicked her wand at the knob.

Given the chill of the night, Minerva decided to apparate directly into Hogsmeade and grab a gillywater at the Three Broomsticks. When she arrived outside the pub, however, there was a decided air of welcoming cheer inside. _Of course,_ she thought to herself in dismay, _it's nearly Christmas_.

She wavered for a moment, then decided that she was most certainly not in the mood to sit on an uncomfortable bar stool listening to Gamekeeper Og singing Christmas Carols while Alastor Moody's sperm trickled down her thighs. She turned to stride back up to the castle, only to bump gently into none other than the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

"Oh, Professor!" she gasped in surprise, and he smiled.

"You are quite within your rights to call me Albus, my dear girl. Although I suppose I must get used to calling you Professor McGonagall now? I profess myself to be somewhat challenged in that respect. It is so difficult for one to see one's students making their own way in the world."

Minerva swallowed hard, not so much listening to what he was saying as noticing that the candlelight in the window was catching the red and slight gold tones in Albus's beard and hair--_A Gryffindor if I ever saw one,_ she thought to herself. "No, Profe--I mean, Albus," she said, coloring slightly and hoping he wouldn't notice in the darkness. "You can still call me Minerva. I don't mind at all." Could he see her pulse, beating quickly in her neck? She pulled her green and red plaid muffler up to her chin.

"Very well, my dear Minerva," he agreed genially. "Are you headed back to the castle, or would you care to join me in a drink?"

About to say that she was headed back to the castle, she found herself instead nodding enthusiastically. "A drink would be lovely, Professor Dumbledore. Oh! I mean Albus," she finished a little guiltily.

He waved an elegant hand as if to say the mistake was nothing, would resolve itself in time, and she followed him into the warm and inviting atmosphere that was clearly better than being outside in the snow.

Ten minutes of conversation with Albus had thoroughly reminded Minerva why exactly it was this wizard that she had fallen for. He was kind, articulate, precise in his words and actions, gentle, and just the slightest bit mischievous. She stacked all these virtues against the awful things she could think of about Alastor Moody, feeling more and more righteous every time she made a favorable comparison for the older wizard. They had been chatting amiably for nearly an hour, about everything from the exact composition of a gillywater to the ways in which wizard and Muggle politics frequently mirrored each other, when Minerva made the mistake of bringing up Gellert Grindelwald.

"Albus," she asked in a low tone, not wanting the other patrons to overhear in case it was a sensitive subject, "what was it like to duel the most evil wizard of all time?"

A shadow crossed Dumbledore's face then, and Minerva realized she had said something that ought to have remained unspoken. "Forgive me," she said quickly. "I didn't mean..."

"Didn't mean what, Professor?" he asked, his face still the picture of attentiveness and polite conversation. "You are quite within your rights to ask. It was, after all, one of the great battles of our time. Alas, I doubt we have enough time for me to regale you with the tale tonight. Another time, perhaps?"

"Of course," she assured him quickly, though both of them knew she wouldn't bring up the subject again. "Would you like to have another..."

"My apologies, Minerva," he said with what seemed genuine regret, "but I have an appointment early tomorrow morning with Alastor Moody--did you know him? He was a few years above you in school, if I remember correctly."

Something of Minerva's surprise and displeasure must have shown on her face, because Albus looked slightly taken-aback. "Did you two not get on? I confess a certain ignorance to the matter."

"We did not get on," Minerva assured Albus, trying to subtly adjust her seat on the stool. She was still rather sore from earlier that evening. "What do you have to meet with him about?"

Dumbledore flipped a hand idly as if to say that the matter was of little consequence. "Alastor is merely keeping an eye on a certain matter for me. It is to be hoped that my concerns are entirely baseless, in which case I may never mention this again."

Minerva frowned. "But sir, Alastor Moody is an Auror. Isn't it inappropriate for you to be interfering in the Auror's office if you're not part of the Ministry itself?" Sometimes, she really wished she could still her tongue, but her love of structure remained her downfall in that department.

There was a mysterious glint in Albus's eyes as he merely said, "Not interfering, my dear Minerva, just checking in. Think of it as a favor between friends." With that, he gave her a quick bow and was gone, long strides cutting through the snowbanks.

That sort of healthy disrespect for the rules was exactly the sort of thing that made Minerva loathe Alastor Moody so much, she thought bitterly. Though Moody had certainly not been Head Boy in his time, or even a Prefect, he had certainly been rumored to be one of the Transfiguration Professor's favorite students, before Dumbledore had ascended to Headmaster and she had been hired to replace him. She, Minerva, had been both a Prefect and Head Girl, and had enjoyed the position of Dumbledore's favorite student, she believed, after Moody had graduated three years ahead of her.

A boy at the bar was looking at her with something like longing. With a start, she realized that he had been a classmate of hers years earlier. He had mocked her then, her eagerness to please the teachers and her strictness as Head Girl, in the same way that Alastor now mocked her for the way she felt about Albus. That was what set the boys apart from men, she decided, and walked into the night, hurrying along through the cold in the fading wake of Headmaster Dumbledore.


	3. Warning Signs

"Warning Signs"

_Spring, 1962_

The information was worth the sacrifice, Alastor told himself, but that was difficult to remember when his hand was pressed to his side in a somewhat vain attempt to contain his internal organs.

They had thought, he and his partner, that they were chasing down one of Grindelwald's old supporters who had somehow managed to evade capture for the last seventeen years or so. The man had certainly shown signs of such, and they had made the stupid mistake of assuming that he was weak, helpless, just because he acted weak and helpless.

That was another mistake he could add to the list of those he would never make again, he vowed with gritted teeth. He had watched as the man had used the Killing Curse on Bones right next to him--he had been busy trying to dislodge the heavy branch above the man's head and bring it down, destroying the temporary shelter the man had rigged at the edge of the trees. Bones had seen what he was trying to do, tried to help and misjudged the angle, and it had cost him his life.

_One mistake_, Alastor thought to himself. _One mistake and I have to tell Amelia her father is never coming home_.

That was his least favorite part of his job. Due to what some said was "The Devil's own luck" and Moody called "chance," Moody had buried three partners so far. Now, he thought it was because he hadn't been careful enough, hadn't been aware enough, hadn't been vigilant enough. It was a damned dangerous job he did, though necessary.

One false start told Alastor that apparating was a serious mistake in his condition, especially as far as London. Well, he was somewhere in the North, probably up near Scotland. If he couldn't get to London, he would get to Hogwarts. It was the only other place where he could deliver his message and get his wounds tended to, hopefully before he died.

His broom felt as if it weighed a dozen times what it normally weighed, but Moody managed to drag it over to himself all the same. It was touch-and-go for a moment as to whether he would manage to stay on once he was in the air, but by wrapping the ends of his cloak around the handle of the broom in front of him, he managed to hold himself almost upright.

Though it felt like days he clutched to the handle of his broom, the sun still wasn't threatening to rise when he finally glimpsed the towers of the school with a half-sob of relief. In his condition, it didn't even occur to him to check that he didn't fly too close, as there would most certainly be enchantments to stop anyone flying unannounced into the castle.

***

"Professor McGonagall!"

Minerva started, blotting the parchment she had been writing. Molly Prewett, a second-year Gryffindor, stood looking anxious in the doorway. "Yes, Miss Prewett? What is the matter?"

"The Headmaster says you must come at once, please," the girl told her with the air of recitation.

"Yes, very well. Where is he?"

"He's at the gates, Professor. He said it was awfully urgent."

Minerva stood at once, letting the parchment roll itself back up, and sent the girl back to her dormitory. She always made an effort to look as though she weren't in a hurry whenever she could, as that would assist in calming the students down. Some times, however, hurrying was simply unavoidable, and a summons from Professor Dumbledore was one of those times. Though why she should meet him at the gates...

She received her answer as soon as she opened the doors at the front of the castle, and saw the crumpled form on the grass. Her father had been a Healer, and since Hogwarts had lost its school nurse to a particularly vicious case of Dragon Pox the week before, Minerva had been filling in. "Albus!" she cried out as she ran, abandoning all pretense, to the auburn-haired wizard kneeling on the ground. "What has happened?" she demanded, dropping down next to him and gasping at the bloody form of Alastor Moody. "What--"

"Help me, please, Minerva."

"Of course, Headmaster, but what--"

"Do not ask questions," he told her firmly. "Make certain he is able to be moved to the castle. I am attempting to lift the hexes he incurred while trying to fly into Hogwarts proper. You will have to see to the wound in his side."

Her eyes widened as they fell on the unsightly gash in the unconscious man's side, and she turned quickly away. There were many good reasons that Minerva had decided not to become a Healer like her father, and seeing blood on a daily basis was one of them. Still... "I'll do what I can," she promised in a voice that only quavered a little.

Dumbledore wasn't listening, but was twitching and waving his wand in a kind of dance as he mumbled incantations Minerva couldn't quite work out. Tending to her own work, she set about attempting to convince the severed skin to knit back together, stopping occasionally to siphon off enough blood from the wound that she was able to clearly see what she was doing.

They worked in near-silence for the better part of an hour before the still form stirred, twitching fingers then finally opening his eyes. They went wide in panic for a moment, then relaxed at the sight of Dumbledore's face. "Albus," Moody croaked. "I need to tell you..."

"There will be time for that up in the hospital wing," Albus assured him, and conjured up a stretcher. He extended a hand to Minerva, still kneeling on the ground, and helped her to stand.

"Albus," she whispered in the general direction of the much taller man's ear as they walked, "he needs rest, and proper Healing of a kind that I cannot--"

He raised one long-fingered hand, and she fell silent. "Minerva," he told her as they ascended the stairs leading towards the Hospital Wing, "please do not doubt that while I do take Alastor's condition into account, there is information he possesses that cannot wait, no matter what the danger. This may be far more important than anyone yet knows, even me."

Minerva had no choice but to jog along to keep up with the Headmaster's long legs.

There were stars above him, and the cold was chilling his bones. He was in space. Drifting...serenely....through space.

"Alastor, you've kicked off your blankets. You must be freezing."

The stern voice woke him up fully, and his eyes gradually adjusted to see Minerva McGonagall's face looming over his. He jerked away reflexively, only to cry out when the movement opened the wound in his side.

"If you don't lie still, I'm going to Stun you," the witch said severely. She was wearing her hair in a bun now--he didn't like it.

With her help, Alastor managed just barely to settle himself on his back again, sighing in relief as the pain eased. "You should take that out of your hair," he mumbled under his breath. "Makes you look old."

Minerva shot him a glare. "I'm younger than you by three years," she reminded him.

"Yeah, but that's no great shakes. I'm on death's door." He tried to laugh, but it hurt too much, and he subsided into a grimace of pain instead.

"You are no such place." Minerva smoothed his blankets into place, then straightened up. "If you're comfortable, I'll just tell Albus that you can answer his questions now."

Alastor let the shade of a grin creep onto his face. Ah, he loved to watch her walk away.

Albus wasn't nearly as strict as Minerva had been with him, but he seemed disapproving nonetheless. "I had no choice," Alastor cut him off before the older man could say anything. "All right, I forgot there were anti-flight jinxes on the castle, but--"

"I am not intending to lecture you about your rather dramatic form of arrival," the Headmaster told him quietly. "I would, however, be glad to make your report to the Head of the Auror office in your stead, if you are not feeling up to the task."

"I'd be fine if there were a proper medi-witch on hand," Moody grumbled, but nodded. "You have perfect recall, right?" At Dumbledore's nod, he continued. He told the story of how they had heard of a man practicing dark and secret arts on the edge of Gretna Green, how he and Bones had been assigned to investigate, how a thorough search of the town had turned up a few horror stories but nothing more. He told how he and Bones had tracked the man down and managed to hold him for long enough that he knew what they were facing, and how it wasn't what they had been expecting. Finally, he told Dumbledore about how Bones had fallen, how Alastor had finished the man off and managed to barely get away, and his harrowing flight to Hogwarts at last.

Albus was silent for a moment after hearing the story. His long fingers were steepled together in front of his pursed lips, and his eyes were narrowed. At last, he spoke. "Alastor, as I'm certain you understand, it is absolutely imperative that you do not mention any of what you know to anyone but myself and the Head--" he broke off, seeing Moody's indignant expression, and nodded. "Of course you would know this, being an Auror. But Alastor, the import of this news..."

"I know what it could do, Albus," Moody growled, sounding like his old self again. "Why do you think I half killed myself getting the news back to you in the first place? My only question is, why haven't you done something about him before now? From what our quarry told us, this bastard's been around for a decade or more, trying to raise followers. Sounds like he's setting himself up to be the next Grindelwald, if you ask me." Alastor had heard rumors about Albus's teenaged involvement with the dark wizard from his father, and had perversely attempted to mention Grindelwald's name in every Transfiguration class he had taken with Dumbledore, trying desperately to see if he could surprise the older man into a confession or a telltale expression, but was always disappointed. This time was no different.

"Oh, I think he is attempting to do far worse than that," Dumbledore agreed. "As to why I haven't 'done anything' about him until now...my dear boy, do you really think that to be true? I assure you, I have set careful safeguards around the one styling himself Lord Voldemort. If he attempts to do more than he has already--which is to say, if it seems as if he is committing crimes himself instead of gathering followers with dark tendencies--please be assured that the head of your office will have my full cooperation. However, while he remains in the shadows..." Dumbledore sighed and shook his head. "There is little I can do about a man I suspect might be a threat in the future."

Moody nodded his grudging acceptance. "Still think you should just take the bastard out, though. Save us all a lot of--"

"I will have none of that talk in my school, Alastor," Albus said warningly, and Moody shut his mouth at once. "Think about the implications of what you are saying. Those are the same sorts of allegations that lead to Gryffindors stating that we should throw out all those sorted into Slytherin House, or think themselves justified in hexing members of that house for imagined wrongs. Yes, I remember how you behaved when you were a student here, and I had sincerely hoped that those tendencies had waned by now."

Alastor had the good grace to look abashed. "I didn't...all right, yeah, I did," he admitted. More formally, he said, "I respect your opinions, but we'll have to differ on this one."

Albus smiled. "I can ask for no more of a friend. And speaking as a friend, would you mind terribly if I asked what you have done to upset my Transfiguration teacher so?"

Alastor blinked. "Me? Upset? When?"

"The last time I mentioned your name, she implied there was, ah, bad blood between the two of you. I do not require you to be friends, but as you are two of the best pupils I have ever trained I would be very much obliged if you would be willing to work together if I were to so require it."

Alastor barked a laugh. "I'll work with her, sure," he said generously. "If she'll work with me. And if she asks you what--"

"I do not require details," Dumbledore said, standing up, "nor do I desire to be an intermediary between you. But between you and I, Alastor, I would be quite polite to Minerva while she is tending your wounds. Good night."


	4. Decisions Perhaps

"Decisions Perhaps"

_Spring 1962, continued_

Albus had only been gone a minute or so before Minerva came bustling back in. He thought she always looked like she was in a hurry. "Your wounds?" she asked brusquely.

"Hurt," he answered, just as shortly. "Take your hair down." He reached up for it, but she slapped his hand away.

"There will be none of that movement for you, Mr. Moody. I expect you to lay very still while I change the dressings."

Alastor grinned. "I can do that."

"The stillness includes your mouth."

"Is that medically necessary, _Madam_?"

"It is necessary for the mental health of your erstwhile Healer, _Mr._ Moody."

Alastor waited, not wanting to move too much for fear of reopening his injury, but caught her wrist in his hand when it ventured close enough. "You haven't been to see me in months."

"Let me go," she said quietly, "or your bandages won't be changed."

He released her, grimacing in pain as she pressed the edge of the bandage to his burning side. "Any chance of a potion to take the pain away?"

Minerva conjured a chair and sat in it, to his surprise. "This is far more comfortable than bending over you," she said in response to his inquisitive look.

"Yeah, but now I can't see your tits," he pointed out. "That's a serious flaw in your--OW!"

"I told you to keep your mouth still," she said reprovingly, tightening his bandage. "I have to make certain this stays on, and if you make me angry..." she trailed away, allowing him to fill in the details for himself.

Her accent made him hard. Or maybe it was the smell of her after five months of nothing at all. He doubted it was her soft touch--her fingers had always been bony and a little cold, and now she was prodding him painfully. He wasn't sure if he hoped she would notice his erection or not. Knowing her, the mad witch might take offense and punch him.

Minerva worked in silence for a few minutes. The only sound was the soft rustle of bandages against cloth and skin, and he noticed that he was the only patient in the hospital wing. Contrary to his expectations, he actually found himself starting to relax under her ministrations which, although not gentle, were certainly thorough. Bit like himself, he thought in amusement, and let one side of his mouth quirk into a grin.

Fortunately, she didn't notice. "There," she said briskly. "You're all patched up. You should stay here for the evening, then we'll transfer you to St. Mungos."

"Don't go yet," he said when she turned to leave.

"Why not?"

Alastor shrugged. "All right, don't tell me why you chose me. Don't tell me why you came to my apartment every month for five years so that I could screw you through the table. But tell me why you stopped coming."

Minerva adjusted her robes self-consciously. "Perhaps I didn't need you anymore," she informed him. "Perhaps I found someone different, willing to take care of my needs without--"

"No, you didn't," he said with certainty. "You'd flaunt it in my face if you did. So why did you stop? Don't give me any of your perhapses, either."

"_Perhaps_ it has escaped your notice, Mister Moody, but I am neither your pupil nor your underling," she said coldly, drawing herself up to her not-inconsiderable height, "and I would appreciate you remembering that you cannot order me around as such."

Moody rolled his eyes. "It was a simple question, girl. No need to get your--"

He stopped talking as she turned once more to leave. "Wait, Minerva!" he called.

She turned around to face him. "And why should I?"

Almost apologetically, he gestured to the bulge under the sheet. "Because, Nurse, I have another wound that needs seeing to."

He truly thought for a moment that she was going to aim a curse--possibly an Unforgivable--at his chest. He looked right up into her eyes, unrepentant, and was a little relieved to see that her wand arm, which had become very tense, relaxed after a moment (though she still looked furious).

"Why would I _ever_ want to do something like that?" she hissed.

Moody cast his mind around for a reason. "Because....you feel sorry for me?" he tried. "Wounded in the line of duty and righteousness?"

Her mouth pursed and all of a sudden she really looked like a Professor to him. "If you have ever been on the side of righteousness, I have no doubt that it was entirely by accident." But she didn't leave.

"Because..." he tried again, "you miss it?"

"Hardly."

Alastor was enjoying himself now, every time she didn't turn and leave him there. "Because you can pretend I'm someone else?" That was a risky one, he knew, but it was better than not trying at all.

Her eyes narrowed. "I would be very careful about that subject if I were you," she said.

"Why?" Oh Hell, the worst she could do was kill him. "It's why you came to me in the first place, isn't it? Or don't you want him anymore?"

She opened her mouth (he was certain) to yell at him, but he cut her off smoothly. "Or is it that you found out the reason he doesn't want you?"

That stopped her short, as he had known it would. Was it really possible she didn't know? But every reaction she made seemed to connote that... "Give me a 'hand' here, and I'll tell you what I know."

"That would, in fact, make me a prostitute."

He laughed. "I'm not offering you any money. Just information. You know, between friends. You stroke my--"

"Back," she supplied quickly.

"Right," he agreed readily, "and I'll stroke...yours."

Her hand was so close now, definitely close enough to touch, and Alastor was hyper-aware of his helpless state. It seemed that Minerva was somewhat aware of it as well, as she didn't look nearly as angry as before. "We are in trouble, aren't we?" she asked delicately, sliding the sheets off his lower body.

"Yes, Nurse," he said with an impish nod. He knew without a doubt that if Minerva McGonagall really hadn't wanted this to happen, she would have found another way to get her information. She was far cleverer than he was, and just as good at getting what she wanted. His eyes closed as her fingers (not as bony or as cold as he had remembered) closed around his length for what he realized was the first time. They had never been much for foreplay, those scattered nights he had taken her, and he rested his head back on the pillow with a groan. "Good," he muttered softly. "Really good."

He heard a strange rustling noise, and looked up to see that she had taken her hair down. It was falling around her face in dark waves once liberated from the bun, and he reached up tentatively to run his fingers through it. She didn't object, and he sighed. "Really good," he repeated as her hand worked up and down, trying to surreptitiously smell her hair. He liked the way she smelled.

"Stop that," she told him, and he guiltily dropped his hand. "I told you to lay still. Or do you want everyone to say that I don't know how to administer a proper bedside manner?"

Alastor's jaw dropped down to his chest. This...this flirty playfulness, this mock-sternness, this loose-haired vixen, was _not _any Minerva McGonagall he had ever met. The one he had known was angry, uptight, and disapproving. This woman was, well, rather attractive, and she was treating his cock _ever_ so nicely with her hand, and oh--her _mouth_!

Alastor stared down at a sight he never thought he would see, as Minerva sucked him into her mouth. He wouldn't have made fun of her now for lack of experience--she had clearly had enough to be getting on with. Not only that, but she was downright good at what she was doing, taking him skillfully into her mouth and pulling back effortlessly, swirling her tongue around the head, making his hips lift pleadingly off the mattress for more.

She took him in again and again, one hand reaching down to softly stroke the heavy sac between his legs, and he started to tremble. "Gods, Minerva," he breathed, feeling his muscles begin to tense---

And then it was gone. She was sitting up, brushing her hair away from her face, looking rather pleased with herself.

"Er," he said, trying to form a better sentence than 'you aren't finished,' "Are you...."

"Going to finish you off?" she asked with an arched eyebrow. "That depends. What do you know about Albus Dumbledore?"

He stared up into her uncompromising face. "I....Minerva, that wasn't the deal we--"

"What," she asked again, running just the edge of a fingertip all the way up his length to the tip, "do you know about Albus Dumbledore that I don't? I can continue doing this as long as you like."

He took one look into her eyes, decided she was telling the truth, and capitulated. "Rumors," he admitted, "I've only heard rumors that he was--Merlin, please, Minerva..."

"Rumors?" she asked with a hint of steel in her voice, and her fingers closed around the base of his cock again, making him whimper.

"Yes, that's all they were," he assured her. "Probably not even true..."

She seemed to decide that he needed a bit more incentive, and hiked her robes up to her waist, discarding her underthings and climbing on top of the bed. Alastor's eyes lit up and his hips strained upwards, but she paused, right at the apex of their joining. "I believe," she told him with just a hint of a catch in her voice, and he could feel the moist heat of her so perfectly positioned, "that you were going to tell me about these rumors...."

"Rumors that he was romantically involved with Grindelwald!" he shouted in a panic to make the moment end, but instead of sliding down on him, she froze. Too late, he realized how stupid it had been to say that to her. "Minerva," he stammered, "like I said, it's only rumors...please, Minerva, no more teasing."

Would she give in to him? Would she leave? He didn't breathe as she made up her mind. He registered, seeing her face, how stricken she was. Merlin, he thought to himself. She's really mad for him.

The moment seemed to last for an eternity for Alastor, who was certain he would pass out soon from lack of oxygen as she seemed to hover, immobile. Somehow Moody knew that she was torn between running after Albus to throw herself at his feet and accepting things as they were, here at this turning point straddling his hips.

Then her eyes met his and she sank down, impaling herself with a swift cry. He groaned, trying not to shoot already just from all of the teasing she had put him through.

Her black hair was cascading down her back and shoulders, and he wished she were naked so he could see those perfect tits of hers, too good for a bookworm, wished that he could grab her hips like he used to and force her down at _his _pace, punishing them both with the force of it. But this was Minerva's ball, court, and match, and all the moves were up to her.

Her thighs were trembling as she raised herself up each time, then sank slowly down. He was filling her more than ever before, mostly because he felt harder than he had ever been, and she felt tighter. Alastor found himself utilizing the breathing and relaxation techniques he had been taught in combative training in order to restrain himself as she slowly, slowly fucked herself on his cock.

After long minutes, Minerva began to speed up, and at her gasp he opened his eyes. She was touching herself, her hand rubbing frantically between her legs right above where he was disappearing into her body again and again, and her moans were driving him over the edge and he heard a low growl building in his throat, louder and louder until it threatened to rip through his chest...

It was all too much for both of them far too soon, and he had never heard her scream so loud no matter how hard he had taken her, and he was calling out too, and he marveled in that dim corner of his mind that was still paying attention to such things at the fact that she managed to fall on his uninjured side.

They lay panting in sync on the hospital bed for long minutes, neither feeling up to speech. Only the thought that someone would eventually need either the Hospital Wing or the Transfiguration Professor interrupted their reverie, and Minerva shakily tugged her robes back down over her legs. Shame, he thought. She had nice legs.

Neither of them spoke as she removed herself from his bedside, but something had changed between them, something subtle in the moment that she had chosen to stay. What exactly had happened Alastor was sure he could try and figure out once he could move again. For now, he contented himself with once again watching Minerva McGonagall walk away.


	5. Rumors and Whispers

"Rumors and Whispers"

_Summer, 1970_

Knowing what they both knew, neither of them wanted to put a name to it. Neither wanted to be the first to say the words, then have the fact snatched away from them the next day. So neither Alastor nor Minerva discussed emotions, which was just as well.

It had seemed practical at first for her to share his living space during the summer. It didn't make any sense, after all, to own or rent an apartment or house just for three months out of the year, and she was tired of staying at the school on holidays. Though she was well aware that the students thought that all the teachers had no lives apart from their curriculum, Minerva refused to prove them right any longer.

So it was that on a warm night in late June, Minerva McGonagall did something she hadn't thought to do again--she apparated onto Alastor Moody's doorstep and rang the bell.

Instead of the enthusiastic response she was expecting, she felt magic being performed. The air seemed to crackle, and there was the distinct sense of being watched. Before long, a voice barked, "Who is it?" in tones so harsh that she almost didn't recognize Alastor's voice.

"It's Minerva!" she called through the door. "Alastor?"

The door opened at once, and his unattractive face split into a wide grin. "Sorry," he muttered, levitating her bags inside. "Can't be too careful."

"Of course," she assured him. There had been another death this last week, one of the Aurors, and the rumors and whispers were growing louder daily. "May I--"

"Yes, yes, come in," he said hastily, beckoning her forwards. She didn't miss that he peered around her cautiously as if he would catch sight of a Dark Wizard lurking in the hedges.

Minerva surveyed the little house, something she hadn't done for some time, and never with an eye to habitation. She hadn't visited him here for nearly a decade--since she had healed his wounds, he had taken to visiting her at Hogwarts, frequently under the pretense of delivering some piece of information or other to Dumbledore. Minerva still felt a slight twinge of regret whenever Albus gave her a particularly gallant word, but had essentially managed to stop herself from making a further fool of herself. And if it wasn't her imagination, the Headmaster had become more comfortable with her as a result, until she felt secure in calling him not only her superior, but her friend, as Alastor had done since he first graduated.

"Come to stay, have you?"

Minerva nodded. "Until September. Then school starts again."

He smirked at her, and she was glad against her will to see that he hadn't changed all that much. "Funnily enough, I remember that about school."

She gave him a scathing glance, which he laughed off, and set about stowing her things in whatever detritus-strewn corner could be cleared for the purpose. There was something sinking in her stomach at the thought of spending two and a half months in this dingy little place, and she considered for a moment walking out and apparating back to the castle.

Then Alastor's arms were around her, his body comfortingly strong pressed against her back. He was shorter than she was, she realized with a little smile. He wasn't tall like Albus, or precise, or terribly kind, but she accepted their differences, the men in her life. In fact, they were very important to her.

Alastor didn't wait, give her a chance to settle in, or speak sweetly into her ear. His hands were touching her already through her robes, and she leaned into the touches. "What did you think of me in school?" he asked, and she shrugged, feeling his hands moving to cup her breasts.

"I thought much the same I do now. You were uncivil, discourteous, churlish, and I didn't like you a bit."

"And you don't now either, is that correct?" he murmured in her ear, finding her nipples with his fingertips and giving them a pinch through her shirt.

Minerva gasped and shook her head a little. "N-not a bit," she agreed. "Couldn't stand you then, and my opinions haven't changed at all."

She could feel the hardness of him pressing against her buttocks, even through two layers of fabric. "What did I do to you?" he asked, breath hot on her ear. "Did I make fun of you in the halls? I only remember you as an annoying Little Miss Know-It-All."

With anyone else, his words would have sent her into a rage. But for some reason when Alastor said such things, she was both angry and aroused. "You never talked to me," she countered, reaching back to rub him through his trousers. "I couldn't stand you because you always lost Gryffindor points."

He laughed as harshly as ever, and attacked her neck with his mouth. "I hate it when you do that," she told him huskily.

He murmured against her neck, "So stop me," and she shivered. She turned in his arms, pulling the shirt from his back and stopped, staring.

His body wasn't as she had remembered it from years ago. He rarely removed his clothing--in fact, she thought that the last time she had seen him totally nude had been more than a decade earlier, in this very room. Then, he had been stocky and muscular, his skin pale but smooth.

It wasn't smooth anymore. There were welts healed over on his chest, pink and angry. A deep scar she recognized as the one she had tended cleaved a bumpy line from hip to armpit on his right side, mirrored by a the shiny mark of an old burn on his left. A couple deep grooves on either side of his navel looked barely healed, still red and a little scabbed, and his left forearm was crisscrossed with fine, webbed scars that were obviously years old. Minerva swallowed hard. Knowing that Alastor had a dangerous job especially in these uncertain times was one thing. Seeing the proof of it written across his body more permanently than in ink was quite another. "Alastor," she breathed, "what on earth have you been doing to yourself?"

He shrugged, looking unconcerned by her perusal of his marred torso. "It hasn't really been me doing it, to be honest. Besides, at least I've still got all my parts attached." He gave her the same lopsided grin that she didn't seem to hate quite as much anymore. "I wasn't much of a looker to begin with anyway."

When still she didn't move he asked impatiently, "Are you just going to stare at me, or are you going to get to work on kissing it better?"

That brought the frown back to her face, and she pushed him hard enough that he fell on the bed with a short laugh. Minerva almost didn't want to take off her own robes, knowing that she boasted only one scar the size of a dime on her left buttock, where she had fallen on her mother's wand as a child. But if Alastor didn't mind, she thought finally, then neither would she.

His eyes moved appreciatively over her form as she disrobed. She still felt self-conscious when he stared at her that way, but endured nonetheless. Grabbing her wand, she performed a quick "Scourgify" on the bed before she deigned to join him on top of it, ignoring his snort of annoyance as the covers soaped and rinsed themselves beneath him. They were still a faded tan instead of the white they had undoubtedly begun, but at least they were clean. And dry, after another spell from Minerva's wand made sure of that.

Alastor had a soap bubble stuck to his hair, she saw in amusement, and didn't attempt to pop it just yet. He grabbed her wrist--she hated that--and pulled her down on top of him, then rolled them over.

He kissed her, deep and harsh, and this time she let him. His tongue was instantly in her mouth, thrusting and stroking, and she bit down on his lip just enough to make him groan, almost enough to make him bleed. His hands were everywhere on her body, up her stomach, squeezing her breasts, down her back, fingertips digging into her buttocks. Though she had mentally sworn not to mention it again, Minerva couldn't help herself from tracing her hands over the scars crossing his body, letting them lead her up and down his pale skin to end, tangled in his hair. Only once did he react to her touch, hissing when she grazed the gouges in the front of his stomach.

She pulled away from the kiss with actual reluctance. "What happened here?" she asked quietly. The wounds were even worse up close, unrecognizable to her.

Alastor looked at her, not down at his own stomach. "Gored," he said after a moment. "By a Chimera, a month ago. Right after I saw you last, actually." His voice went quiet, but not soft. "Albus thinks Voldemort's turning loose all sorts of creatures, trying to cause mayhem without implicating himself. There was another giant attack yesterday, did you hear?" At her startled look he assured her, "None of our people dead, but a few Muggles bit it. But you didn't come here for war talk, did you?"

She hadn't come for war talk, hated that there was such a thing when everything could have been fine. Neither of them wanted to admit that the wizarding world was no longer safe. "No," she said, "that isn't what I came here for."

She let him kiss her again, let him touch her all over, leaning into his touch and sighing. He kissed her neck, her chest, then slid his fingers very softly between her legs, and she let out a breathy moan.

Alastor pulled away abruptly. "Get out."

Minerva sat bolt upright. "I beg your pardon?" she asked incredulously.

"This isn't you," he said curtly, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side. "If you're going to want softness and sweetness from me, or think that I need to take comfort in romance, you're not the woman I asked to live here with me."

Minerva stared at him for a moment in outrage, feeling her face grow hot and only dimly noticing the scars on his back as well, before she spun him around and slapped him across the face. "How _dare_ you?" she demanded. "This wasn't about what I wanted from you, it was about--"

"About what you thought I needed," he shot back, hitting the nail on the dot. "You were wrong. I don't want that, and I sure as hell don't need it. I go to see you, I let you move here because you want it. I hate girls who play games, and I hate liars, so if you're not going to take what you want you can get out right now."

He stared at her, challenging her glare with his own. She wouldn't have wanted to be on the other side of that glare as a Dark Wizard, she thought, and certainly understood why he had been hired as an Auror. His admonishment to take what she wanted had brought her up short, forcing her to ask herself a difficult question: what did she want?

Why was she here?

Why had she ever come here in the first place?

A decade and a half earlier, she had apparated here almost without meaning to, furious at herself for feeling the way she did about Albus and with a fierce longing to give herself up totally, surrendered to the one person she could think of who she both loathed and trusted. Loathed, because he was the antithesis of everything she admired and liked. Trusted, because he was a Gryffindor, and an Auror, and Albus's friend. She had come because he would oblige her, and because she was punishing herself.

She had stopped coming because, quite simply, she had stopped hating Alastor. It wasn't that he became kinder to her, or easier to deal with, but they had reached a somewhat amiable understanding. It hadn't hurt anymore; she hadn't felt angry at herself for giving in to him. So she had stopped seeking him out, until he had arrived at the castle in such poor condition.

She had started seeing him again because she had accepted what Albus meant to her, accepted him as a friend, and wasn't nearly as eager to punish herself. And being with Alastor was no longer a punishment, for either of them (she hoped). It was...solid, in a time where neither of them were certain what the next day would bring, where some of her former students were old enough to be part of the solution or the problem, where many of her old friends had vanished without a trace, where a man employed as an Auror would either end up dead or looking like a rag doll that had been carelessly torn apart and inexpertly sewn back together.

Minerva saw herself then, as Alastor must see her--a woman, not so young, but whole, proud and angry, and suddenly gone soft as soon as she saw his scarred body. Yes, she thought, she would have been offended too.

She could leave. She could walk out this moment, grab her things and hurry back to the sheltering walls of Hogwarts, behind which nothing could touch her.

No one would touch her.

Or she could stay in Alastor Moody's dingy rooms with a man who probably didn't hate her.

It took her only a moment to make up her mind. She stood up and walked away from the bed, pleased to see that he looked disappointed. Instead of heading for the door, however, she perched herself on the edge of the table, and his eyes lit up.

As he took her then, swift and ungentle, she whispered into his ear, "I hate liars too."


	6. Ever So Proper

"Ever so Proper"

_Spring, 1975_

"Hold still," Minerva told him sternly as she had every time she had to heal one of his wounds. There was a new medi-witch at Hogwarts now, but as some of his activities were entirely clandestine Minerva was usually the one to patch him up. She had already repaired his shattered tibia and was working on the crushed fingers of his left hand. He knew it frightened her, seeing him in various states of disrepair.

"I'm not moving," he growled. It was not quite a lie, for he was certainly twitching in pain, but he was at least not moving voluntarily. He was sitting on the desk in her office, leg propped up on one of the student tables and his hand held in both of Minerva's smaller ones.

"All your memories of me are going to be painful ones," she muttered under her breath as she pulled his ring finger straight, and his face went white.

"They already are," he gasped, "but that doesn't have anything to do with my wounds."

She smiled, and he used his right hand to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear, kissing her quickly before she forced more of his bones back into their proper place.

All of a sudden Alastor heard a sound from behind him in the room, and grabbed urgently for his wand, almost collapsing in pain from the sudden movement but facing the dark corner nonetheless as Minerva made distressed noises behind him.

"Who's there?" he called fiercely, pointing his wand into the shadowy area. "Minerva, what's back there?"

"Nothing, Alastor!" she assured him, turning up the lights so that he could see clearly into every square inch of her office.

He was indeed pointing his wand at a blank stretch of wall, but couldn't suppress the memory of earlier that day when a particularly clever Disillusionment Charm had brought him down. "Better safe than sorry," he told her, and yelled, "STUPE--"

"Okay, wait, don't hex me!" Came a voice from the blankness, and Alastor kept his wand trained on the spot from whence the voice had come. He glared and Minerva gasped as a boy emerged from empty space, no more than fifteen, with untidy black hair.

"James Potter!" Minerva shrieked, and quickly twisted her hair back into its customary bun in order to give herself extra authority. "How DARE you sneak into my private office!"

Alastor laughed at her furious expression, earning his shoulder a slap from Minerva and a sheepish grin from the dark-haired boy. In truth, he laughed to cover up the noise that his heart was still making inside his ribs. At the sound in the room, he had at first been certain, positively certain, that one of those styling themselves Death Eaters had found him even here, was going to kill him at last or take Minerva away from him. _I have to find a way to see through invisibility cloaks_, he thought determinedly. _This can't happen again._

He was considering carrying some sort of powder or charm with him for detection while Minerva gave the unabashed James Potter a detention and sent him on his way. "Probably gone to tell Sirius all about this," she muttered darkly, turning back to his hand.

"Serious what?" he asked, reaching his good hand up to loosen her hair again.

She let him, snapping his little finger back into place with an audible _"crack_". "Sirius Black," she told him, and seeing his eyes narrow, assured him, "Nothing like his family at all. He's a Gryffindor. Though if anyone thought that kept him out of trouble..."

"As much trouble as I was, are they?" he asked with a more genuine grin, and she favored him with a rare (these days) smile.

"At least."

The last finger popped back into place, this one only dislocated and not broken. "Don't use the hand too much for at least a week," she told him primly. "Find another way to sate yourself, if you must."

He leaned close and breathed, "Do it for me."

"If you think," she said severely, locking her office door with her wand at the same time she descended to her knees, "that just because you were foolish enough to smash your hand I'm willing to give you some sort of service," she slid him out of his trousers, "then you are highly--"

He put his hand on the back of her head and slid easily into her mouth, effectively silencing her.

She knew what he liked by now, and was extremely good at not giving it to him. Today, however, she seemed to suffer from no such perversity. Minerva sucked him in deep, and the sensation of feeling himself sliding so far down her throat made him groan in pleasure. Her tongue wriggled salaciously along the underside of his length, and he felt himself grow even harder in her mouth.

Alastor's good hand tangled in her loose hair, pulling it a little more than she liked so that she would whimper around his cock. He knew she wouldn't mind today--she knew he needed to take her roughly after he had been fighting, particularly after a close escape, so he didn't feel guilty for sliding down her throat too fast, or holding her down for a moment too long. She choked a little after a particularly deep thrust, and he let her up for a second, only a second, to breathe. "I'm not going to stop," he told her hoarsely.

Her eyes were only big because she was looking up at him, but the effect was good, and he sheathed himself in the hot wetness of her mouth over and over, taking little care for her except to revel in the difficulty she had in taking him all, holding her down and pulling her up by her hair, using her almost cruelly. "Do you want it in your mouth or on your face?" he growled, feeling himself getting close, and laughed a little to himself as she looked crossly up at him, unable to answer while deep-throating him. He knew she wouldn't mind too much either way.

Then he stopped thinking, stopped doing anything but thrusting raggedly into her mouth, and he was coming buried deeply down her throat, pulling back just a little so that she would taste him on her tongue, and he couldn't remember if he had cried out or not in the heat of the moment. He sagged back on the desk, watching her get to her feet as she wiped the corners of her mouth. "Ever so proper, aren't you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I am a Professor," she reminded him. "Though I do shudder to think of what Potter and Black are going to make of seeing me with you."

Alastor grabbed the front of her robes with his good hand and pulled her close for a kiss, softer than usual because of him instead of her. Her cheeks were still flushed, lips were still swollen, and her hair was still down, and he privately thought that she looked perfectly debauched. "I doubt he'll tell anyone."

"You don't know Potter," she said in annoyance, pulling away from him to straighten the student tables. "He--"

"I know adolescent boys," he interrupted, "because I was one."

"Still are one," she muttered, and he laughed.

"He won't tell anyone because he'll be too busy beating off to the thought of you looking like that," he assured her. "Like you said, I am one. I understand the temptation."

Minerva spluttered incoherently for a moment, then found her voice. "James Potter? To thoughts of...that's disgusting, Alastor!"

Alastor shrugged. "What do you think he was doing hiding in your room anyway? No one knew I'd be here, did they?"

"I had assumed," she said with a chill in her voice that always amused him, "that he was looking to expunge certain records of his activities from my office. The thought that he would be seeking to physically gratify himself to his old Professor's appearance certainly never--"

"Hey, if you're old, that makes me older," he complained. "I'm not old yet. I'll probably never be old, if the Death Eaters get their way."

"Don't say that," she said quickly. "You've been lucky so far, haven't you?"

Alastor nodded grudgingly. "So far is right. Can't stay lucky forever, that's not the nature of it." He heaved himself up off the desk, not wanting to talk about the subject anymore, only to bite back a cry of pain when his recently repaired tibia absorbed the impact. "I'm fine," he told her through clenched teeth when she hurried to his side. "Just forgot for a second. I have to go, make my formal report in London."

Minerva kissed him one last time, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"Be safe," she told him.

"That's not my job," he answered, and was gone.


	7. Lost

"Lost"

_Summer, 1977_

Alastor was late.

However, Minerva McGonagall was more inclined to believe that "late" applied to any period of time past due between one minute and one half-hour. Beyond that, as far as she was concerned, one was considered "absent" or "missing."

Alastor was missing.

He had left on official business, supposedly tracking down a possible Death Eater, three months earlier. He should have been back two weeks previous, and Minerva had started to worry in earnest. It was foolish of her, she was certain, to have come back to Moody's house that summer. Knowing that he was away on a dangerous mission, it would have been far smarter to remain at the castle. Alastor would seek her out there when he was back. She would have companionship, and not have to endure the little house that failed so spectacularly to live up to her standards for a living environment.

But she did not go back to the castle. Instead, she had bought a bed. It was large, soft, and durable, the three things that his former bed (sadly deceased) most certainly was not. The one time the previous summer they had tried to use it for "aerobic" purposes, the dilapidated thing had collapsed, leaving the two of them bruised and laughing.

Minerva hadn't thought that she would remember the incident with fondness, even remember it wistfully, but that was before Alastor had essentially disappeared. Albus, she knew, had had no contact with the Auror for a month, something that worried the older man greatly. Minerva had noticed the Headmaster's beard and hair turning swiftly to silver the longer that this hidden war had dragged on with the same regularity that Alastor collected scars. She herself had found herself doing work for Albus that he called "Extracurricular" and most people called "Espionage" a time or two, with the result that she herself had acquired a few wrinkles over the years. Getting older, she thought wearily. Witches and wizards were long-lived compared to Muggles, but that didn't stop her from beginning to look like someone's grandmother.

Of course she never worried about her attractiveness when she was with Alastor. Not because their feelings for each other were particularly strong, just because he placed just about no store in looks, and was no prize himself in any case.

_Clunk_.

_Clunk._

_Clunk._

Minerva bolted out of the bed and ran to the door. There was a strange sound outside, as if something heavy were hitting the ground, and she triggered the wards on the house. Alastor had put up several traps against Dark wizards over the past several years, many of which had saved both of their lives a few times.

Someone was definitely outside. A quick glance at the Sneakoscope on the table showed it to be quiescent, but Minerva pulled out her wand just the same.

Whoever was outside was making their way heavily through the wards on the house. That could only mean that whoever it was knew the safeguards and traps, knew the passwords, and _must_ be Alastor! With a cry of relief Minerva threw the door open wide....

Only to wake up several minutes later in bed with Alastor leaning over her.

"What..." she asked, mind foggy.

"Sorry," he muttered, and shoved a cup of tea into one of her hands. "Stunned you. Didn't mean to. I wasn't expecting to see you here."

There was something different about him, she observed with a sinking heart. Something a bit off. Something about the way he was moving....

And then she saw it. Where his right foot should be was empty air, as was the area above it. Minerva choked off a scream as she saw that Alastor's right leg was missing below the knee. "What....what happened?" she demanded, feeling ill at the sight of the wound. "Can't anyone fix it?"

Moody laughed harshly, and she winced. "Of course not, sorry," she said quietly. No spell could fix a wound of that nature, especially if it had been caused by Dark magic. Now sitting up, she noticed the heavy crutch propped up against the wall by the door, and the wooden leg sitting on the table.

"Looks like we're going to have to use the bed now," he said with a hint of apology. There was a barely-healed gash across his cheek and forehead that would have looked horrific under other circumstances, but paled now in comparison to the loss of his leg. "Can't balance worth a damn yet. Keep falling over."

His tone was no darker than usual, but Minerva had gotten far better at reading the enigmatic Auror. Losing a leg would mean that he was less agile, less nimble, less able to dodge unfriendly spells. It would put him at the mercy of others, and he had certainly made enough enemies so far to need to fear such an occurrence. "Are you going to retire?" she asked carefully, and was rewarded with a glare.

"Retire?" he growled. "I'm fifty-five. My father was an Auror until he was ninety. You think just because I lost a leg that I'm giving up? Letting this Voldemort bastard win?"

Minerva flinched a little at the sound of the name. She wasn't certain why, but the sound of it seemed to invite evil into a place. "I didn't think you were giving up," she said placatingly. "I only meant that maybe the department--"

"The department knows better than to fire me," he said firmly. "I'm worth more to them, even in this condition, than half of the idiot recruits we're dealing with lately. I know who a lot of the Death Eaters are, and I've fought most of them personally. If they fought fairly, or one-on-one," he said darkly, "there's be a lot fewer of them. And a lot more of me."

Minerva didn't know what to say. She wanted to offer comfort or support, but knew he hated that more than anything. He hated it when he was healthy, and she could only imagine how he'd feel now that he was crippled.

As if to answer her thoughts, he grabbed her face in both of his scarred hands and drew her close, kissing her so fiercely that it shook her right down to her bones.

They were both panting when he pulled away. She hoped that the flush in her cheeks and the way her body was reaching for his could tell him everything that he would want to know, but didn't want to hear. She hoped he could tell that she didn't care if he lost both of his legs, didn't care how mangled his body became, as long as he remained one of the ten percent of Aurors who lived to an old age.

Whatever he saw in her face was enough to make him kiss her again, and again, and she wasn't complaining. He was pressing her down into the bed now, and her hands clutched at his back.

He pulled away so quickly he might have been burned, and there was pain in his expression. "Careful," he muttered. "The Malfoy kid got me there. You have him in your class? Little bastard's as bad as Abraxas was."

"I did have him, yes," Minerva said with a sigh. "He was something of a menace, and an awful influence on the younger children." A thought occurred to her and she asked, "Have you by any chance run into Severus Snape while tracking Death Eaters?"

"Snape?" Moody grunted, and he shook his head. "Never heard of him." His attention to the subject of Dark wizards seemed to be waning the longer he looked at her, and he moved to divest her of the little she was wearing. "He anything special I should look out for?" he asked as his hands ran down Minerva's stomach to her thighs, spreading them apart.

She tried to remember what she was talking about, but gave it up as a bad job as his fingers were stroking her just _there_, and two of them were sliding inside her. "Just a student who came of age this year," she responded breathlessly. "Thought he might--oh, I'll tell you later. Please take me, Alastor."

He obliged her as always, and was just as rough. In fact it was a bit painful at first, for Alastor was definitely off in his rhythm. Of course Minerva knew why he was unbalanced, why his thrusts were constantly angled uncomfortably to the right instead of dead-on, but she kept silent. She was rewarded when he seemed to find his stride, balancing instead on his hands and good leg, and cried out as he pummeled her hips with his, slamming deep inside with a brutal roughness that belied the look she had learned to read in his small black eyes.

Minerva was nowhere near close, but noticed that Alastor was tiring rapidly, balancing on only one leg. She felt like crying, but shoved that emotion down. If she offered to help in any way, she was sure he'd be offended or insulted, so she submitted to the hard pounding without saying anything.

A minute or so later, Alastor's leg gave out on him, and he fell heavily on top of her. She grunted, having the wind knocked out of her, and he didn't meet her eyes. "Alastor," she said softly, and really noticed for the first time how gray his hair had become. She touched it tenderly, and was emboldened when he didn't push her away. "It's fine," she said quietly, with him still hard inside her and his weight pushing down on her chest.

"Useless," he muttered after a moment, and her heart constricted painfully.

"No," she assured him. "Albus won't find you useless at all. Because what makes you a good Auror isn't your fitness, you dolt. You're the most carefully analytical man I've ever known. You know exactly what the Death Eaters are going to do before they do it, and usually how to stop them."

He laughed, but there was none of his usual warmth in the sound. He levered himself up onto his arms, rolling off of her. Minerva's chest expanded in a grateful breath. "Hardly. If any of that were true--"

"You're better at it than anyone else in your department, you said so yourself," she said with a touch of anger. "And if you think I'm going to put up with you feeling sorry for yourself, you are sadly mistaken."

His eyes met hers again, and he was clearly chagrined.

"Not to mention," she continued in her best Professor-voice, "that if this new pathetic persona of yours means that you are going to stop shagging me in the middle of the act, you can get out of your own house right this instant!"

She hoped that she hadn't gone too far, but with Alastor it was always better to push. She knew how to deal with him now.

He stared at her for a minute then said, "Your nostrils are flaring. And...since when do you use the word "shagging"?" Before she could reply, he rolled onto his back. "All right, then," he said simply. "Climb on. Your turn to do all the work."


	8. What's in the Shadows

"What's in the Shadows"

_Winter, 1980_

Alastor Moody did not consider himself mad.

He knew what they said, knew that they thought he had gone very close to the Darkness himself in the fighting of it. He did not agree.

The last three years had taken much out of him. He rarely looked in the mirror anymore. "If I wanted to see a stranger through glass," he growled at the young Auror trainee who had asked, "I'd stare out a window."

She had giggled and gone off to tell her friends what he had said, had whispered that he wasn't all that scary up close but _so ugly_!

The next week she had been dead. Moody had found her head along with those of the Muggles she had been trying to save. The Dark Mark had burned high overhead, visible even in the growing dawn.

Albus looked shocked to see his old friend again when they met for the Wizengamot. "Alastor," the older wizard said, and his old professor was obviously sad to see the way he now looked. "You've changed, my friend."

Alastor shrugged one shoulder. He was more lopsided in general now, and tended to move that way. "Some people rot from the inside out," he said with a jerk towards Crouch. "I'm just doing it the other way around."

"Preferable in the extreme," the older man agreed. "Shall we proceed?"

Moody clunked after him, in some ways relishing the way that the good wizards and witches turned to stare at him. _That's right_, he thought savagely, _stare at the Auror who's given everything so you can sleep safe and sound in your beds. Go ahead, stare._ Affecting an air of supreme unconcern, Moody heaved himself into the seat next to Albus, who gracefully alighted on the bench.

The trial made him sick. It was a mockery of justice made solid. Lucius Malfoy stood in front of the Wizengamot, spinning a tearful story of his tragic life under the (conveniently unprovable) Imperius Curse. He was the very picture of handsome repentance and remorse, capping his tale off with his "gesture" of absolution, a generous gift of gold. "Slimy bastard," Alastor growled. "Thinks he can buy justice, does he?"

Very quietly, with just a hint of bitterness, Albus said, "He may be correct, Alastor," as the Wizengamot ruled for him--by a very slim margin. Alastor and Albus had both voted against, and were overruled.

Alastor caught the Death Eater's gaze as the blond man walked out, and he caught the hint of a sneer on that coldly handsome face. Moody let his lips part just slightly in a sort of growl, seeing the man he had brought to justice removed from it by careful application of funds. "Rotten from the inside out, that one," he muttered, and Albus took hold of his arm with long fingers.

"Come, Alastor," he said quietly. "There's nothing more to be done." He led his friend up the elevator, into an area from which they could safely apparate.

For the first time in half a year, Alastor saw the turrets of Hogwarts Castle rising out of the horizon. Even Crouch, it turned out, had decided that Moody needed a day off, and was just as unyielding in demanding that he take one as he was in every other aspect of his life.

As they drew closer, however, Alastor knew there was something wrong. His wand was in his hand before he knew why, before he registered even the complete word "threat," pointing at the darkened trees on the edge of the grounds. A Stunning spell was out of his wand before he identified the object or person moving about, much to Albus's surprise.

Limping heavily over to the area where the spell had hit, Alastor looked around. "Only a bird," he reported. "Could've sworn I saw something bigger. Maybe someone's still hiding there."

"Alastor," Albus said quietly, "We are within the grounds of Hogwarts. I assure you, nothing could have--"

"They might have penetrated the defenses," Moody insisted. "Only last week there was another attack on the McKinnons, you heard it, and we thought we'd shielded their place to a fare-thee-well! I was _there_, Albus!" He did not say what was really bothering him, did not want to admit it had affected him so deeply, but knew he wouldn't be able to keep it in much longer.

"I know you were, my friend." Albus's eyes were sad, and fortunately not indulgent or patronizing. Old friend or not, old Professor or not, Alastor would have hexed him he he had seen any sign of either emotion. Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps before we go to the castle you would prefer a drink at The Three Broomsticks?"

Moody shook his head. "No thanks. I carry my own drink now," he said, patting his hip flask. "Ever since that oleander incident with the Minister." He shuddered at the memory. He had been the one to find the man, covered in blood and sweat and vomit and other substances to which he didn't want to put names, obviously having thrashed around in the fluids for at least an hour. The leaves had been dried and ground, and placed in the Minister's nightly cup of chamomile tea. That was the end of tea for Moody that he hadn't grown, picked, dried, boiled, steeped, and drunk himself in the privacy of his own home.

"Of course," Albus said readily, and turned to walk up to the castle, Moody limping along behind him, cursing his bad leg.

"I am rather gratified to notice," Dumbledore said as they ascended the stairs, "that your first instinct was to use a Stunning spell, as it would have been ages ago. I have heard somewhat unsettling things trickling out of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Moody frowned more deeply at the mention. "Yeah, Crouch is thinking of authorizing Unforgiveables soon," he admitted, then looked sharply at his old Headmaster. "You expected me to use them? Just like that?"

Dumbledore held up his long-fingered hands in a gesture of peace. "I never intimated anything of the sort. I was merely pleased to see that the mania of better-dead-than-alive hasn't yet extended to all those I once taught."

"Don't go heaping praises on me yet," Moody growled. "I've killed my share of Death Eaters."

"Not if you could help it, or so I hear."

Moody choked off his next response because there were children around now, children who didn't need to see him break down with the guilt that he had been carrying for the last week that might have torn him apart if he let it. Instead, he let the comment go.

Abruptly, Dumbledore stopped in his tracks. "Well, I highly doubt you followed me here to speak of nothing more than the trial," he said briskly. "Shall I leave you here for the time being?"

With a start, Moody realized that they were right outside of Minerva's office. He had suspected Albus knew of the two of them for years, but this was the first proof he had received. "Yeah, all right," he agreed. "Keep that long nose out of trouble."

"Difficult, but possible," the Headmaster said with a smile, then strode off to his own office.

When Moody pushed the door open, Minerva was a cat.

He locked the door behind himself, walked heavily into the room and sat down in her comfortable office chair as she morphed quickly back into a human woman, looking shocked at his appearance.

"Alastor?" she asked in incredulity. "What are you doing here?"

"Why were you a cat?" he retorted. "Were you investigating something? Was it a trap?" Almost compulsively, he flicked his wand at the door to lock it again.

"I was looking for a lost quill," she said in amusement. "My vision is much better, especially in low light, in my Animagus form."

"Wish I'd thought to become an Animagus," Moody said darkly. "Being able to slip around undetected could've come in handy a few times." Thinking of the most recent time he could have used such a power hurt, and he pushed the feeling away.

"Yes, well, I somehow doubt you would have the patience for it," she muttered. She turned to face him then, and the two of them locked eyes for the first time in half a year.

He was not by nature a self-conscious man, which was a good thing. As it were, the only vanity he had was for his abilities, not his looks. Still, Minerva's look of dismay wasn't helping him feel any better.

She had changed, too. She was not how he remembered her, not quite. She was taller somehow, and looked both sadder and stricter, and her eyes and mouth were far more lined than they had been. There was something hard behind her eyes that he had never seen before.

They stared for long minutes, neither daring to move.

Then all of a sudden she was in his arms, and he was kissing her with everything he was, his hand not caressing her body but holding her face. She was trembling, and he pulled her down on top of his lap, grunting a little as she sat on his stump.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, and he shut her up by kissing her again, feeling that somehow, everything would be all right as long as he was kissing her. As long as their lips were touching, nothing could hurt them.

Neither of them seemed in a hurry to move the exchange along any farther, and they kissed languidly for several minutes without breaking. He knew that his fervor and his desperation were either mirrored in her or infecting her, because she clung to him just as tightly as he to her.

There was a loud "BANG" from outside the door, and Moody leapt to his feet, wand still in his hand, dumping Minerva unceremoniously on the floor. The door flew open in time for him to see a couple of young boys run off, laughing, having tipped over a suit of armor. He was about to fire off a curse when Minerva grabbed his wrist. "Alastor!" she shrieked, "those are students!"

His heart was still beating fast, blood and adrenaline pumping quickly through his veins in an advanced state of awareness, as he watched the boys disappear around a corner.

Minerva shut the door with a slam and turned to face him. "Alastor, you _cannot_ go around hexing everyone that startles you!"

"They might not have been students," he muttered, eyes darkly moving around the room. "They could have been in disguise, could have been covering up--"

"They were students!" she shouted. "Can't you put down your wand for one moment? The first time you've seen me in months?"

He shook his head almost compulsively. "No, Minerva, I can't. Because every time I do, someone gets hurt. Someone gets killed." He turned away from her, muttering, "I thought you would understand."

"Why?" She looked pained, though he wasn't sure of the reason.

"They were your students, weren't they?" They had come to it at last, the subject he had been trying not to bring up all day.

Comprehension did not dawn instantly on her face. "Who, those boys? Of course they--"

"Not them."

She went silent, finally realizing what he was talking about. It hadn't hit him again quite yet, though he knew it was only a matter of time. "So," she said finally, when the silence had stretched on long enough, "it's true, then?"

He nodded, and she staggered a little, as if weakened. "I had heard rumors," she said softly, "but I didn't want to believe them." She sat down, looking up at him through watery eyes behind her spectacles. "Were you there?"

It was the question he hated. Neither answer was good, but he always thought a negative was worse. "No. I found Dolohov, two weeks ago. We dueled." Surprisingly, Moody had walked away without further scars from the encounter, though he knew Dolohov was carrying a few now. "Then Rosier and Wilkes showed up, and..." he sighed. "I'd been tracking them for six months. I called Frank, went after them, left Dolohov to the Prewett brothers."

"Antonin Dolohov did that?" Her voice was hardly above a whisper. "By himself?"

Moody laughed humorlessly. "Dolohov, kill Gideon and Fabian Prewett? No. He had help," he said bitterly. "Four other Death Eaters, never found out who. In a fair fight they'd have wiped the floor with the Dark bastards." Killing Rosier, seeing Frank take Wilkes down, had been cold comfort once they had found out what had happened in their absence. "We found them," he added harshly in an almost-croak, "Me and Frank." It had been worse than finding the Minister after the oleander, because he had known Gideon and Fabian, had trained them, and to see the expressions on their faces in that deserted warehouse...

Minerva's hand touched his forearm, and he jerked in surprise, then relaxed. It was getting harder and harder for him to "switch off," as it were. She ran her fingers lightly through his hair, then brushed over his face.

He hissed when she touched his nose, and she pulled back. "Was that Dolohov?" she asked in a whisper, indicating the large chunk that was missing.

"Rosier," he corrected. "Not quite as quick as I used to be before I lost the leg." He thumped his wooden leg, creating a hollow 'thunk.'

Minerva raised her eyebrows. "Is your leg hollow, Alastor?"

He grinned, a little sheepishly. "Yeah, it is. Well, part of it." With some difficulty and a grunt of pain, he managed to take off the leg and put it on the desk. Taking out his wand, he tapped it twice, then removed a little hidden compartment that had just been revealed. From it, he drew out three small vials and a stone.

"What..." she breathed, then held each up to the light in turn. "An antidote to Veritaserum?" she guessed at the dark green vial, to which he nodded. She held up the red one. "An Awakening Draft?" she guessed, and again he nodded. It was the most powerful potion for alertness that he had the skill to make. The totally clear vial seemed to puzzle her, and she passed over it for the moment to pick up the stone. "A bezoar?" At his nod, she seemed to realize what the clear vial was.

"Don't!" he growled as she moved as if to uncork it. "If anyone but me opens that...well, you just shouldn't open that."

"Alastor," she said quietly, "is this what I think it is?"

He nodded. It was his just-in-case potion, the one he never wanted to use. "Even a whiff will knock you out. One sip..." He shrugged. "Easier death than the Prewetts got. Better than Benjy Fenwick. At least it's quick, and painless. And I'd rather take it than be captured by their lot any day of the year."

She looked pained at the notion of him using such a thing, but merely nodded, replacing the four little items back into their hiding place. She moved to replace his wooden leg, but he motioned her to put it back down. "Leave it," he said gruffly. "Good to relax."

Minerva laughed a little then, undoubtedly at the notion of him relaxing. She was, actually, the only person with whom he would relax, which made his task for the afternoon all the more difficult. She moved behind him, and he forced his muscles not to tense just from having her so close. It had been a while. Her hands move onto his shoulders, fingers as bony as he had ever accused them of being, and he groaned as they worked into the stiff muscles of his neck. "Good," he gasped out, eyes rolling back into his head in utter relief as she thoroughly worked away the tension that had been building up in his shoulders for the past thirty years. She had last done this for him a decade earlier, when she had still been spending summers in his house. "Do you remember our summers together, Minerva?" he asked almost softly.

Her fingers did not pause in their ministrations. "I do. The last one was only two years ago, before you went after the Lestranges."

"I remember going after them," he admitted, "but I don't remember the summer before that." He groaned as she worked out a particularly stubborn knot. "I know they're saying I'm mad--"

"You're not mad," she cut him off. "You're overworked, run down, stressed beyond belief and permanently injured to boot--"

"We call that 'crippled,'" he interrupted her in turn, and gasped as she dug her thumb harder into his spine.

"Injured," she repeated in a threatening tone, "not to mention all the emotional trauma you've been through, but you're certainly not mad." Working a bit lower on his back now she added, "Calling you mad would be giving you an excuse, and I for one am unwilling to do that."

"I killed Rosier," he confessed. "Looked him in the eyes and ended his life. Not the only one. Just the last one." Telling her about it felt good, so he continued as she skillfully removed the knots from his back. "I killed Avery a few years ago. Never told you."

Her fingers stilled. "I hadn't heard..."

"Not your student," he said quickly, "his father. One of Voldemort's first Death Eaters, back when we thought they were called 'Knights of Wallaburga' or something."

She started up again, and he sighed. "I almost killed Karkaroff. Spent six months tracking him down, and I wanted revenge. Didn't take it, though. Hardest thing I ever did." He started telling her the little things now, the stupid things that no one else knew about. "I killed a dog three months ago, just because it wandered into my yard and set the alarms off, blasted it before I could think. I held a Muggle at wand-point for three hours because I thought she was a Death Eater in disguise. I spent three days rereading the March seventh issue of the Daily Prophet because I thought there was a concealed code in the recipes section." His voice was rising now, the words either being torn or forced from him, he couldn't tell which. "I had to replace my refrigerator because I put one too many anti-intruder jinxes on the old one and it exploded. I smashed my birthday present apart because it looked like a basilisk egg. Minerva, I'm--"

"Shh!" Her arms were around him then, stopping the flow of his words and the shaking of his shoulders. She stroked his head with trembling fingers, as well as his shoulders and arms, until he finally stopped shaking "You aren't going mad," she said soothingly. "You've seen too much, is all. Anyone else would be the same way. Except of course that if anyone else got themselves into such a state, they would be begging for a vacation instead of trying to work even now!"

Her reproving tone made him laugh a little, albeit weakly. He sobered up quickly, as he always did nowadays. "The truth of it," he said slowly, not wanting to give voice to his feelings but unable to stop himself, "is that I'm not sure we can win."

She was silent, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. "He's gathering followers faster than I can track them down. The worst part is that we have to be careful bringing them in, but they kill all of us they want. Minerva, you and Albus are the only people I know who haven't been attacked by him outright yet, and that's more luck than anything."

"Luck and the fact that you won't let me come to your home in the summers anymore," she added.

"You're too vulnerable there. I'm too vulnerable there. Got to keep moving whenever I can."

Minerva looked disapprovingly down at him with her "Professor face." "Alastor, I am quite capable of taking care of myself. I am a member of the Order of the Phoenix in my own right, and a more than adequately skilled witch, if I do say so myself. Professor Dumbledore places his trust in me, and--"

"Merlin's beard, Minerva," Alastor growled. "You think I'm doing this because I don't think you can take care of yourself?"

"I think you're behaving ridiculously, if that's what you mean," she said irritably. "You are an Auror, and I understand that you may have been under so much pressure that you're jumping at shadows that don't exist--"

"Don't exist??" he bellowed, and she only flinched a little. "Shadows that don't exist? Tell that to my missing leg, Minerva. Tell that to Gideon and Fabian Prewett! Don't exist!"

"You have lost control of yourself!" she shouted, raising her voice almost to match his. "You can't save everyone, Alastor Moody!"

He glared at her, and a tiny voice in his head said that even now he'd like to mount her on the table. He pushed that away and growled instead, "You don't understand. You can't understand. That's why I have to do this."

"And what," she asked in a voice like brittle glass, "exactly are you doing?"

"Ending this!" he roared.

For the third time in as many minutes, the two stared at each other in silence. Minerva was the first to break it, turning towards her desk and straightening a few scrolls that had been piled there by over-hasty students. "I see," she said carefully, not looking at him. "Well. I suppose you had better be off, then." She handed him his wooden leg, still not meeting his eyes. "Death Eaters won't catch themselves, will they?" She strode off along the classroom, straightening tables as she went, finally stopping to stand in front of an open cupboard, obviously not looking for anything in particular except a diversion.

_It's better this way_, he told himself. If they were no longer together (as together as they had ever been, anyway), she couldn't be used against him as a target. There had been an attempt two years previous, the last time he had invited her to his house for the summer. Whether it was aimed at him or at her, he couldn't take the chance again. He attached the leg firmly to his stump, and clunked heavily out of her office without a backward glance.

Two days later, his left eye was plucked out of his head.

One year later, they met briefly at Lily and James Potter's funeral.

They did not see each other again for over a decade.


	9. Perils of Survival

"The Perils of Survival"

_1994-1995_

Minerva wasn't entirely certain how she should have reacted when Albus visited her in her office late one evening in June. "Terrible business, about Remus Lupin."

"Yes," she agreed with a hint of sharpness. "It's a shame that certain Professors are so incapable of--"

"Now, now, Minerva," said Dumbledore gently. "I understand that you feel some loyalty to Remus, after having been his head of house, but we must attempt to remain both fair and unbiased. It is entirely possible that Severus believed that he was acting in the best interests of the students."

Minerva did not think that even Albus Dumbledore could believe such a thing from Severus Snape, but knew when to hold her tongue.

"It would seem," the Headmaster continued, "that we are once again at a loss for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I have decided to take a somewhat unconventional approach in my appointment, for reasons I will presently outline."

Minerva waited for Albus to get to the point. He would not have come here to tell her about just any staff appointment. He was leading up to something, she was certain.

The headmaster folded his hands and said quietly, "We all know that this world of ours has been darkening steadily over the last fifty years, Minerva. The past thirteen have merely been a respite. I have always said this, from the night that you and I stood in Privet Drive."

Minerva nodded. She remembered that fateful night, when not even news of James and Lilly Potter's deaths had overshadowed the feelings of rejoicing, excitement, and profound relief from the Wizarding community. Even then, Dumbledore had seemed less excited than everyone else, not to mention his distraction in the form of the baby Harry Potter.

"The point, Minerva, is that the shadow has been growing again, and it has almost regained form. Yes, you know of what I speak. That is why I think it will be time for a new direction in our course. I am telling you this," he said in response to her expression that must have asked exactly why, "because I will need your help. Just as I did last year, I will need you to help me convince the other teachers that my appointee can be trusted. And more importantly," and now his eyes met hers over the top of his half-moon spectacles, "I will need you to keep an eye on the students. You of all people know how he can be when he thinks he's being threatened."

The import of his words sank into her, and she gasped, "But you can't! He isn't a teacher, doesn't even like children! He's not qualified, and..." _and I don't want to see him again_, she finished lamely in her head, certain that as always Albus could pick up on even her unvoiced thoughts. It was not quite Legilimency that the Headmaster utilized, merely a long familiarity and rapport with those he was able to easily read, along with an uncanny understanding of the way most people's minds worked.

Albus waited until he was certain that Professor McGonagall wasn't going to continue her sentence, then said quietly, "I can, Minerva, and I will, because I must. They need to know what is facing them, especially as certain of them have such a penchant for getting into situations in which even grown wizards would be lost. Alastor can teach them that, teach them what it means to truly fight against the Dark Arts, to dedicate yourself to a purpose so clear that it consumes you. Not only by telling them, but by example."

She knew what he meant. It hurt her to hear it, but she knew it was true. How many would-be heroes would be spared an early death by seeing up close and personal just what so-called heroic deeds could do to a person? And what better object lesson could there be than the once-great Auror Alastor Moody? She had heard of Moody's doings, the last decade, but not spoken to him. She had heard that no one called him by his first name anymore, but "Mad-Eye" for the electric blue magical eye that now resided in one of his eye sockets. She had seen it only once, caught a glimpse at Lily and James's funeral, and it had made her shiver. She had had the uncomfortable sensation that all through the funeral, the eye had been trained on her. Minerva had also heard that Alastor had retired from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, that he was essentially living out his days in various states of deluded paranoia in his cottage. In the old days of the war his enemies had called him mad, but there had been respect in their voices, and they had only spoken of him in hushed tones. He had always been at least two steps ahead of the ones he was fighting, but now he was ten steps ahead, frequently in the wrong direction. Now he was ridiculed for his 'vigilance,' she knew. She had heard students speaking of a stupid old man who jinxed his neighbor's cat when it wandered too closely, speaking of it and laughing at the barmy old codger.

It had hurt.

"Being misunderstood is a peril of outliving trouble," Albus said softly, once again as if he could read her thoughts. "You and I have both encountered this. Alastor knows that being ridiculed is an occupational hazard of having survived great conflict. I've told him this myself. It is far easier for those young people who call us mad to think so, because they do not want to think that they could end up like us if they do what is right." His smile was sad. "No one who wants to be a hero when they grow older ever thinks about what happens after the battle. Sometimes, just rewards are unjust."

In the face of both logic and the compassion that Dumbledore obviously still felt for Alastor, Minerva knew that it would be quite wrong of her to complain about the appointment based on a relationship she had had with the Ex-Auror many years ago. "I'll do what I can, Albus," she promised. "I doubt very much that I'll be able to stop Moody if he truly intends to hurt someone--"

"I have already spoken to Alastor about cursing first and asking questions later," he interrupted smoothly. "I have met with him extensively this year, and I believe that his nerves are up to the task. If they were not, I think he would have refused the appointment, don't you?"

"I don't really know what he would or wouldn't do anymore, Headmaster," she admitted, almost ashamed to do so. "I haven't spoken to him for nearly fifteen years, after all." Had it really been fifteen years? Some days it felt like mere hours since she had seen his scarred visage leering down at her, since she had felt him, strong and sure, between her thighs and pressing her into the table.

Some days it felt like it had never happened at all.

"Well," Albus said briskly, getting to his feet, "I suppose that is that. I will leave you to your evening, as I have a few owls to send. Are we still having tea tomorrow?" She nodded, and he swept out of the room, leaving only uncomfortable memories and a vague sense of forboding in his wake.

_Alastor fought with everything he had, but there were two of them and only one of him, and he was overpowered and no longer young, just as he had always feared. The intruder alerts had worked, but the bastards seemed to know exactly what to do to get around each and every one of them. _ It's just as I always feared_, he thought with a mix of terror and triumph. "COME OUT AND FIGHT LIKE MEN!" he roared, aiming swift jinxes through the window as fast as he could, but it was no use. They had taken him asleep and as unprepared as he ever was, and there were two of them, and he was caught._

_He was caught by the enemy at last._

Minerva was shocked to see Alastor when he first arrived so dramatically into the Great Hall. The scars that had been angry welts the last time she had seen them were faded to thin lines, giving his skin a patched and faded look. His magical eye was as frightening as ever, and she wondered absurdly whether he could see through clothing, hers in particular. The thought caused her to flush and look away when he turned to see her.

The most frightening thing for Minerva about seeing Moody again was that he hardly seemed to recognize her. Had it been so long? Had he...no, he couldn't have forgotten. He was not truly mad, after all, or Albus would not have allowed him to teach. He must be ignoring her for some reason, she was certain. Perhaps they hadn't parted on the best of terms, but that was no reason they couldn't be civil to each other when they were going to be colleagues, for Heaven's sake.

She made an overture to him, invited him to her room for tea, but he brushed her off. "Can't be too careful," he had said, patting his hip flask. "Don't accept drinks from just anyone."

Minerva McGonagall struggled for a moment to keep her face still, not betraying the internal shock and hurt she was feeling. The worst part, she thought as she marched back to her office, was that he didn't seem to realize he had said anything to upset her.

She caught him only two days later, transfiguring Draco Malfoy into a white ferret. She, once again, was forced to play the Professor, telling him off as well as the students loitering about. Again, Moody seemed supremely uncaring. It was enough to drive her mad.

If he had truly been mad, she could have forgiven him. If he had run about cursing everything that moved, or trying to dance with suits of armor, or giving out blowing gum wrappers like poor Alice Longbottom, she could have forgiven him a thousand times, would have done anything, anything to try and help. But Alastor Moody, it became very clear, was not mad.

He just no longer cared about her.

_Locked in his own truck, subdued by spells and potions, Alastor Moody brooded. There wasn't much else he could do in the situation. Without his leg, he was immobile. Without his eye, he was impaired. Without his wand, he was powerless. Without his wits about him, all he could do was brood. Brood, and take savage pleasure in the fact that the Impostor, as he called the man in his mind, had not thought to ask about Minerva McGonagall. He had been bombarded with every sort of question about himself, about Albus, about the school itself, and had given full and complete answers to every question he had been asked. The Imperius Curse was far worse than either of the other Unforgivables, he thought darkly, because it stripped a person of their very mind. He would far rather have been tortured or dead than trapped in this hell. If he had kept his wooden leg, he would have swallowed the clear potion without hesitation rather than be used against those he had considered friends and allies for half a century. He wondered if the Impostor was teaching the children about what it felt like to be Imperiused right then and there. It had been part of his planned curriculum, after all._

_Deep in the part of his mind that was still his own, one bruised and battered corner of it, Moody clung fiercely to two thoughts. The first was that the mission (whatever it was) could not be going according to plan, or he wouldn't still be here. The second was that surely, surely, before long, either Minerva or Albus would notice that it wasn't him, couldn't be him, was as unlike him as a person could be. There was no way that anyone could duplicate another person so fully as to be indistinguishable to even their closest friends._

_But day after day, Moody had to concede that he was wrong._

Minerva hated Alastor Moody. She had hated him since she met him. She hated everything about him, from his hip flask to his scars to his stupid hidden compartment in his stupid hollow wooden leg. She hated the way he used to touch her, and hated more fiercely the way he no longer did.

Most of all, Minerva hated the way that he obviously didn't care for her, but she couldn't stop thinking about him.

_Deep in his own trunk, Alastor Moody lost track of the days. As hard as he could, he focused on anything, anything, other than Minerva McGonagall. His thoughts were weapons against those he loved in the hands of The Impostor._

_She would not die because he couldn't stop thinking about her. She would not._

The Third Task ended horribly, unexpectedly, in murder. Minerva stared down at the Diggory boy's body, unable to believe what she was seeing. He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't. Looking around in a panic, the first person she saw was Moody, limping purposefully towards the body on the ground. "Alastor," she begged with a sob about to rise in her voice, "he might just be sleeping. Give him the Awakening Draft, please."

"Don't have time to brew one," was his response, and he seemed focused on something besides even the dead boy on the ground. She watched in surprise and growing horror as he stumped over to the Potter boy, leading him back up to the Castle. A howl broke into her concentration, and she turned back to see Amos Diggory, a good man, weeping brokenly on his knees.

After one moment more, something clicked. She turned and saw Albus, suddenly rigid, and their eyes met. Many times they had shared a thought on the heels of one another, and this was one of those times yet again.

The man who had just left the pitch was not Alastor Moody.

Then they were running, pelting up the distance to the castle, and somehow Snape had joined them, and they weren't going to be in time, and how could she have been so _stupid_?

That Harry was only almost-killed by the time they made it into the room was nothing short of a miracle coupled with a penchant of Dark wizards to speak for eternities. Minerva had been sent by Albus to fetch a dog from a pumpkin patch (though why that was important she was certain Albus would explain later), and so missed seeing the twisted flesh of Moody be replaced by the firmer and smoother skin of Barty Crouch, Jr. The man told his sickening story, a tale of deception and betrayal that made her feel ill with disgust, and her heart clenched painfully when he talked of surprising Alastor in his own home. _Just as he always feared_, she thought with a wrench. The Potter boy was shaking by the end of it, and Albus removed him from the room, leaving her to keep vigilant.

She was startled when the door opened again and Poppy Pomfrey bustled in, looking as serious as ever. "Where is he?" she asked, and Minerva stared at her in confusion. "Alastor Moody, the real one," the harried witch elaborated, looking around the room. "Snape said that he was here."

With a jolt, Minerva caught sight of the trunk, standing open mere feet from her. "He must be in there," she said quickly, keeping her wand trained at the throat of Barty Crouch Jr. Sure enough, Alastor was recovered from the depths of the trunk, covered with a traveling cloak and looking... worrying.

Minerva forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. For the first time, she understood the fury Alastor had always told her about, when he had a Death Eater at his mercy and was forced to hold back.

When everything was said and done, the man who had committed the crimes Kissed in front of her very eyes and the school in mourning, she sought Alastor in his darkened office.

"Who is it?" he barked.

"It's Minerva."

The door opened just a crack, and she could see his magical eye scanning her intently. After a moment he growled, "Why did you hate me at school?"

It was such an odd question that Minerva laughed, then stopped at the look on his face. "Because you lost Gryffindor so many points," she said, and the door opened the rest of the way.

"Had to make sure," he said gruffly, and she felt another squeeze to her chest as she saw how he had changed.

Once inside his office, she realized she had no idea what to say. She hadn't come with any specific purpose in mind other than to reassure herself that they were real, all the years she and Alastor had spent together, and that he was alive and as whole as he could be. Once she saw him, though, she was at a loss for words. Their years had obviously happened--it seemed foolish now, the way she had begun to doubt. And Alastor was deeply shaken by his ordeal, she could tell. He was even more jumpy and distrustful than usual, though at least now he seemed to have no problem in meeting her eyes.

Finally, she knew she had to say something--_anything_--to break the silence. "You look better," she said lamely, but was rewarded with a harsh bark of laughter that put her somehow at ease.

"Not quite dead yet," he said grudgingly. "Not for the bastard's care and tenderness, though. Filth," he added in disgust, eyes wandering to his old trunk. He looked as if he were steeling himself to say something, and she felt a lump grow in her own throat.

At the exact same moment, they both said, "Forgive me." Then, "For what?"

Minerva laughed a little sadly. "For not realizing at once that it couldn't have been you. For suspecting that you had changed so much as to be unrecognizable."

"I have changed," he said harshly. "I'm not the man I used to be, Minerva. I've only got pieces of him left." He turned away, facing his sneakoscope which lay, dismantled and quiescent, on the table. "I'm sorry I let them take me. I endangered the school, the students, the whole world." There was pain etched into the deep lines and grooves in his face, and she reached for him instinctively.

She had expected him to pull back, or even hex her out of reflex, but instead he pulled her close. His arms were around her, her head pressed into the crook where shoulder met neck, and his breath was warm on her neck.

For just a moment, it was as if nothing had ever changed. Alastor's arms were just as strong as they had ever been, and they held her just as tightly as they ever had. Minerva looked into his eyes then--or his eye, as the magical blue one was still scanning the room for any possible threat even then. It wouldn't matter when her eyes were closed, she thought firmly, and kissed him.

Even his lips were scarred now, split by the same thin lines that split the rest of his skin, but she didn't care. His walking stick hit the floor with a clatter as both of his hands came to her head, holding her still as if frightened she would slip away.

Then, it seemed as if nothing mattered.

It didn't seem to matter that they were both moving more slowly now, both over the age of seventy.

It didn't seem to matter that he had to sit in the chair as he could no longer stand for long periods of time.

It didn't seem to matter that she was riding him, gentle and slow, instead of being taken hard and fierce.

It didn't seem to matter that it had been fifteen years since he had last been inside her, for he fit as perfectly as ever.

They took longer, went slower, than they ever had before. There were caresses, to make sure that the other was real. There were kisses, to make sure the other still had feelings. There was pleasure, to link the two of them in ways they had both thought abandoned to the recesses of time long ago.

And finally, there was absolution, resolution, and forgiveness.


	10. Sin of Omission

"Sin of Omission"

_Summer, 1997_

Alastor had not been there.

He had thought that he was immune by now to the sort of immutable guilt suffusing him. He had thought that now he was older, wiser, it would be easier for him to accept his own limitations. He had also thought that there was no loss that could reopen the old sense of shock and horror that he had felt so frequently in his youth, when losing friends was something to which he hadn't been accustomed.

All it had taken to shatter those preconceptions was the death of Albus Dumbledore.

"It was Snape," Minerva told him in a voice that sounded broken. "And we always trusted him..."

Alastor did not say what he was thinking, that it was a mistake to trust anyone who had once worn the Mark, that he had been saying so for years. He would have rather lost his other leg, though, than cast blame on such an occasion.

He always tried to suppress the bitter sense of satisfaction he felt whenever one of his paranoias was justified. It was difficult always to keep from yelling, "I've been saying it for years!" or "Now you see what comes of being too trusting!" or from reminding them over and over that the only thing, the _only_ thing that would save them in the end was _constant, never-ceasing vigilance_.

The last two years, he grudgingly thought to himself while seated at the funeral in front of the white tomb, had been far better than the dozen that had preceded them. It had felt good to be doing something again, to be helping in some way. Much as he might have publicly insisted that he was after a quiet life, Moody was the product of two generations of war and bloodshed. Without conflict, without a chance to do something for the world, he was as useless as he had been in the bottom of the trunk two years before. Retirement, he decided, was for those who could cope with seeing the world fall apart and not do anything to stop it. He now realized why Albus had never retired, even when the specter of Lord Voldemort had seemed disappeared forever.

Albus had always known it would come to this. Moody didn't know why the Headmaster had died, could only suspect that there had been some sort of plan behind it all, but with no proof he had to proceed the best he could. Immediately after the funeral he Apparated to Number 12, Grimmauld Place and set what the rest of the Order were calling Anti-Snape jinxes on the house. They weren't as lethal as he would have liked, but the other members of the Order had been explicit.

Working was good. It kept his mind as close to at-ease as it ever was lately. He immediately launched into a plan to remove Harry to the house of one of the Order members. Privately he might have thought it wasn't much use, that without Dumbledore the rest of them were merely marking time until the Death Eaters took over the Ministry and Hogwarts not to mention the world, but he kept those thoughts to himself, as he had during the first war. Without knowing exactly how, Alastor had become the de-facto leader of the Order, at least for the time being. It made sense; he was the oldest now, except for wheezy old Elphias Doge, and certainly had the most experience with fighting Dark magic and the wizards who employed it.

He saw little of Minerva now, meeting with her only along with the rest of the Order. He had not planned this, as he had during the First War, to keep her safe. He was simply working, working every day and most nights, enchanting house after house, putting up ward after ward, occasionally haring off after seeing traces of Death Eater activity close by, and trying again and again to come up with a plan that would allow them to safely remove the boy in whom Dumbledore had placed all of their hopes, the boy in whom the Wizarding world at large had placed all of their hopes, the boy Harry Potter.

Besides, Minerva was busy, too. Busy trying to keep the school from falling apart, the way Moody heard it. Busy trying to keep the Death Eaters out, trying to keep the students enrolled for next year, trying to pretend that Dumbledore's death hadn't shaken them both more than any other loss could have.

She had subscribed, as he had not, to the notion that few awful things could really happen with Albus around. She had lost her friend, colleague, sometimes-father-figure, and one-time-object of her affection. Alastor had just lost the best friend and teacher he had ever had.

Neither of them spoke much that summer, after the funeral. They would have time together, he reasoned to her in one of the rare missives he allowed to be sent, after Harry Potter was safe.

He was wrong.

Only Albus had known that she and Alastor had been something more than friends, Minerva knew. Remus Lupin certainly hadn't known.

So how could he know what a shock he had given her?

"We got Harry out safely," he said, looking weary and ill despite his recent wedding.

"Good," she said with a sigh of relief. "Any problems?"

"We lost Moody."

_No_. It couldn't be, it couldn't have happened, not just like that, not after she had just lost Albus. Remus had said something else, but she hadn't heard. She had known him for half a century. Everything they had been to each other, from fighters to lovers and everything in between was gone, just like that. It was more than losing someone for whom she had cared deeply, it was losing a large part of herself. With Albus gone, Alastor had been the only person in the world that had truly known her.

She blinked her eyes fiercely, but they were dry. It seemed she was beyond tears. "When..." she asked, then cleared her throat. It seemed to have become very hoarse over the last minute. She tried again. "When is the...funeral?"

Remus looked surprised. "I don't think there will be one," he said honestly. "After all, we never found his body, and any sort of gathering gives the Death Eaters a better opportunity to get many of us at once."

There would be no funeral. The greatest Auror of the last hundred years would rot in some abandoned field somewhere, be left there by those he considered friends, because they were busy. Because they were afraid. "I'll go find him," she muttered, standing up from her desk with no clear idea of where she was going, just that she had to find Alastor. "Maybe he isn't even dead, maybe--"

"Professor," Remus said gently, "Voldemort killed Moody himself. Avada Kedavra, right in the face. He's dead." He frowned a little in concern. "Did you know him well?"

It was summer, and the window was open. The breeze was warm on Minerva's face, and she was smiling as she lay next to Alastor in the bed she had bought. He was still sleeping, she thought with fondness. His face was relaxed, and he looked completely unlike he did when awake. It had taken him long summer months to feel comfortable enough to sleep when she was awake. Still, she told herself, it was probably him becoming more accustomed to her rather than trusting her. Minerva didn't reach out to brush his graying hair back from his temples out of any sort of emotion, just because it was in his face.

He stirred, and looked up at her almost in puzzlement, then smiled. What she felt seeing that smile, answering with one of her own, was merely the affection bred by long years in each other's company. Nothing more than that, surely.

He looked up at her for a moment, then pulled her down for a kiss. He had always wanted to kiss her, even before she wanted to let him. She pulled away after a moment and went to the little kitchen area to start making breakfast.

"Minerva?"

She looked over at him, but he shook his head. "Never mind," he muttered. "Now isn't the time."

Minerva was relieved. She knew what he had been about to say, because he had tried to tell her several times. But that wasn't what the two of them were to each other, she reasoned.

They weren't in love.

"Did you know him well?"

Minerva swallowed hard, hands clutched on her desk until they had turned white around the knuckles. "Do you know," she said slowly, "I think I did." After all, she thought in vague disconnect, it was better to tell the truth. Alastor had always hated liars.


End file.
